Category Archives: 2016

Our sweet Maddie turned nine this week. She is such a smart, creative child. She is mature beyond her years. Maddie wanted to have her party at Starz Gymnastics. What a blast it was!

All she asked for was a pair of roller blades. She is a skating fool!!! Her favorite things to do are: read, roller skate, create art, and play soccer. She recently got 6th place in her school’s spelling bee and she made the Battle of the Books team! She gets her smarts from John!
We sure love you Maddie. You are turning into such a caring girl. We are proud of all you do.

Thanksgiving weekend was magical. We spent actual Thanksgiving day half relaxing at home with games and the other half visiting with grandparents and cousins.
The next day we decided to go camping at our local state park. Camping became a part of who we were this summer and it felt good to get back at it! The kids enjoyed hiking for hours both days. It sure was cold during the night though! We each slept in multiple layers.
Max and Maddie even went mountain biking for a few miles. It was Max’s first time to trail ride and boy was he a dare devil!

Sadly, most of the pictures we took can not be found. I hope they did not get deleted…

Here are a few pics we still have from the weekend

The older kiddos and John hiked to a very high point. Here is their view from up top. They had a blast!

We are certainly thankful for our health, family, and everything else life has to offer.

We have taken the no TV rule from October one step further for November and declared an “outside challenge”. The rules are simple, as a family we have to get outside once a day together for a month… We have been hiking, playing soccer/basketball and even out to feed the ducks at a nearby park.
This Thanksgiving weekend we will go on our first camping adventure since our big trip! It feels good getting outside, even if only for a little bit. (John, Max and I are lucky enough to get at least 1 – 1.5 hours a day outside while we are at the school, and Ethan shoots hoops for hours before dark. It is our girl who needs a push to get out and explore!)

We enjoyed a night walk outside of town to watch the super moon rise. What an amazing sight. Max and I ended with yoga and we all left howling at the moon!

We enjoyed playing at an empty park on a cold day.
I am such a kid at heart!

Early morning soccer game, before school.

We have missed a few days where we were all together doing something outside. However, it is super easy to pick back up the next day. We have enjoyed this challenge so much that we are striving to continue this challenge as long as we can!

We are well into the new school year and finally after 12 weeks things seem to be slowing down around here. We all have our daily routines established and for now things are rolling along smoothly. We did hit a bump in September where it seemed us parents were just too tired to cope and it seemed the kids were given the opportunity to fall back to their old TV watching/ IPad days. I declared, “Enough is enough” in October and away went it all for 30 days. What an amazing break from the noise and distractions of our technology driven world.

It has been great getting back to what we do best, being a fun family!

We have been playing this balloon game for days. The kids beg us to play any chance they get! The rules are easy, keep the balloon in the air. They have come up with many new rules to keep it challenging, including a doubles game.
We enjoyed a Harry Potter Potions making night at the library.
Maddie as Hermione Granger at character day at school.
Other random happenings at our house:
And of course we had plenty of Halloween fun.

I can not believe our first born is now a teenager. Watching him grow has been incredible. And yes, I cry every year on their birthdays. I stay up looking at baby pictures the night before and the tears are unstoppable. This year was no exception. My, where does the time go?

Ethan is really into sports, his appearance (mainly his hair) and his friends. Most of the time he is off at a friend’s house until dark. I miss him being home, but I know the job of a parent is to help your child become who they are and to fly away from the nest. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon! He is way cooler than John and I ever were in school.

A birthday tradition for our children is waking up to few treats and browsing through the baby books. We don’t often buy sugary cereal so this was a real treat!
My mom surprised Ethan with a basketball goal. That is where he can now be found at all hours of the day shooting hoops either alone or with friends. Poor kid is trying to teach me how to play! It has been fun getting to spend more quality time with him doing something he loves.
Ethan is really into brand name everything, as I am sure most kids are at some point. He grumbled when I bought one bag of store brand chips for his party. So we decided to throw him a generic party!! He found a bit of humor in it.
He had 9 other teens stay over. They played football and basketball until way past dark and then watched scary movies into the wee hours of the morning. We all had a great time.

Oh, this sweet boy of ours. He is trying to navigate the way into the next phase of his life. Some days are good and others not so good. He has found his inner back talking, grumbling self. I sure miss him being my sweet little cuddle bug, but it has been fun watching him change into the man he is becoming.

Our sweet Max celebrated his sixth birthday on the 1st of September. He is and has always been such a little love. He is a caring, sensitive, energetic little one. He loves nature, making art, playing trains, knights, pirates, and he still loves playing with his two baby dolls. He is still quite the momma’s boy and oh, how I love this. I know all too well that these babies grow too fast. I am trying to soak up all his babyish ways before it disappears.

I have been making my kiddos birthday shirts ever since Ethan turned one. As always, I put it off until the night before! I stayed up until close to 2 am finishing his sloth shirt! His expression when he saw it made the long night worth it.
Another tradition with all my babies has been to go to Chuck E Cheese with the cousins and Grammy to play games.The magic of being little is still here, if only for just a little bit longer.

Max wanted to have a jungle themed party. We had a great time playing jungle games.We played: Anaconda tug of war, guess what animal is on my back, pin the tail on the lemur, jump over the crocodile, all tangled up like a vine and Legos. Max had a blast.

He got his first ever “big” kid toy, a Nerf gun! He has been too worried about losing the darts to even play with it though, ha! He wore his birthday crown for over a week.
Here is to many more magical years. May you stay caring and sensitive, my little Baby Bear.

Most of the first half of our Taos adventure was leisurely and restful. The rest of our stay was quite an adventure.

It has always been a dream of John’s to hike Wheeler Peak. We didn’t think it would be possible, on this trip, with the younger two being so little. But, Sara found an awesome summer camp to take the younger kids. Sara, Ethan, and John dropped them off in the morning and headed for the peak via William’s Lake. It was a challenging hike to the top and a mentally draining hike to the finish. It was great to get past the tree line and see that the green on the mountain side is nothing but flowers. We enjoyed seeing lots of marmots and mountain sheep. It was also interesting to see how windy and cold it is at 13,000 ft. Even though this hike was extremely challenging, we all agreed we would love to do this again.

We always enjoy rafting as a family. Sara, Ethan, and Maddie love adventurous rapids, while Max and John like the slow float. Since we all wanted to stay together on the river, we took the slow float. This year the water was so low that the slow float was just a little too slow for us. Regardless of that, we enjoyed our time together.
We got to visit our church home away from home, St James’ Episcopal, a couple of times during the trip. During one of the visits, we had the privilege to help the needy and volunteer with the food pantry crew. There were hundreds of people (in this tiny little town) that needed assistance from the food pantry. Many of the volunteers needed assistance themselves. It was devastating to witness such poverty. We met at 9 a.m. and put in a grueling day of work until 4:00 p.m. All three kids said that this was one of the highlights of the trip.

The food pantry operation is currently looking for donations to buy a walk-in freezer to store even more food if anyone out there wants to give. This church gives so much to the community including: weekly food pantry, utility assistance, fire wood, Habitat for Humanity organizing, and much more.
We really had a chance to bond as a family during quiet moments.
We had lots of outside time.
We agreed that since we would be gone for a month we were going to eat as healthy as possible. Plus, we had a tight budget so we saved our restaurant money and our waistlines for Taos. We enjoyed some of our favorite places to eat: Taos Pizza Outback (for the cool outside environment), Taos Cow (for the great ice cream and coffee), and The Coffee Spot (Our favorite of all).
Sadly, our trip ended three days shorter than planned. In the middle of the night, on our last night, Sara was awoken by headlights near our camper and saw a man get out of the car. She immediately panicked, but figure that he was stopping to use the restroom. Without warning, he started firing a gun. In all the confusion, we didn’t know if he was shooting at us or not. Quickly, he ran to his car cheering to his buddy and took off. After thinking about it, we assumed that the kids were just out pranking. But, Sara, who has always been afraid of guns, just couldn’t get settled. So, after a sleepless night, we decided that this adventure was over and we headed home.
We were crushed to leave this beautiful place and the freedom that this trip brought to our family. Everything we experienced was more amazing than we ever could have planned for. It was really hard for the parents to get home and adjust to life after the fact. We missed our immersion into simple living, pure nature, and complete family time. We were also more tired than expected and it took weeks to recover and for life to seem normal. The kids, however, didn’t miss a beat! We can’t wait for our next Epic trip…. There are talks of Disneyland, the Pacific Northwest, New England, or Asheville, NC. We could be driving in any direction. We are extremely thankful for this trip and our time together.

After we had driven about 3,300 miles we had finally made it to Taos, NM! This was the stop that we had been looking forward to. After seeing so many beautiful places on our trip, we were worried that Taos might have lost it’s majesty. Although it took Sara an hour or so to get the feel, Taos was as inviting as ever. We pulled into town and cranked up the KTAOS.
We found a cozy spot to camp in the Taos Ski Valley and started our 9 day camp out. Once again, we didn’t have water or electricity.
Each of us picked our favorite thing to do in town. The John Dunn Bridge is always a must see. Usually we all love swimming in the Rio Grande. But, sadly, after seeing such clear, beautiful water on the other legs of the trip, the water just didn’t seem inviting. Maddie barely even stepped foot in the water. We did get a couple of good pictures of the kids before they were begging to leave.
We all loved taking afternoon naps.

The kids always enjoy a trip to one of the coolest toy stores around, Twirl. I like loading up on “stocking stuffers” here while the kids play. We actually visited here twice this trip.

After quick drive from Telluride through the San Juan mountains, we ended up in Pagosa Springs. As we had only ever driven through here, pre kids, we didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t have any official plans except to take it easy and rest. As we entered the town, we saw scores of people tubing on a river that ran next to main street. Epic Mom and the two older kiddos quickly made plans to go!

Sadly, there are no pictures of tubing since we didn’t want to risk the chance of losing our devices. The tubing was such an adventure! Each one of us flipped out of our tubes. Maddie had a big spill within the first four minutes. She made it through the first drop but then got sucked back into the tow and briefly disappeared. Thank goodness for her life jacket. This was so scary for her.

I would have enjoyed this better had I been able to wear my glasses. I couldn’t see anything! The end seemed pretty dramatic at the time. Ethan and Maddie flipped out at the last drop. Both kids and their tubes floated by me. Since I was visually impaired, I couldn’t even help them. I began frantically screaming! Turns out the river was very shallow at this point and they easily walked out! After this we noticed every single person ending their ride the same way! This spot also had a lovely hot spring flowing into it.

We were excited that our campground had a very shallow river running by our spot. We ended up buying a tube for the kids. They played for over two hours in the water.
This was a very relaxing pit stop.

Telluride is one of those places that you can’t get out of your head once you have experienced it. We keep thinking back on how breathtaking this area of Colorado is. Too bad it is so far away.

After a short but scary drive (2 lane, windy road with massive drops) from Moab to Western Colorado, we were surprised by everything Telluride had to offer. And, it was 70 degrees during the day….much better than Moab.
After searching for a bit, we set up camp at one of the many free campgrounds outside of town. We found a spot near a big lake. This is the first time on our trip that we camped so deep in nature and away from light pollution. This was also the first time that we did not have electricity and running water. Being here made our souls feel alive.
The kids enjoyed exploring the area.
The town had a free Gondola that ran from the edge of town to Mountain Village (the ski mountain). This was very helpful to us since Maddie isn’t so much into hiking. We were able to ride up the mountain and hike down 3 miles.
Telluride also has a frigid river running through town. If you are crazy enough, you can get in and freeze.
This is the first place we visited where a camp fire was actually needed to stay warm. We spent many hours by the fire. After the first night, we learned that when the sun goes down, you go to bed. Otherwise, it is so cold that it takes forever to warm your bones. But, if you brave the cold, you will have an excellent view of the stars.
Sara decided that she wanted to live here until we got a good look at the non-summer weather. Telluride looks to have 2 seasons, cool and frozen. Besides, it is too far away from family.